Neal Middle School Students Plant School’s First Garden “Wow!” to take place at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 6
December 6, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DURHAM, NC- As our nation’s students struggle to overcome low test scores and poor graduation rates, an extended learning time (ELT) program in Durham is taking an innovative approach to teaching science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Citizen Schools, a national nonprofit education organization, taps the expertise of area professionals to volunteer in the afternoons at Neal Middle School.
Kacie Martin, a former UNC professor and member of the Durham County Extension Master Gardners, teaches science to sixth graders in a hands-on way: through urban gardening. “I volunteer with Citizen Schools because I want students to understand the importance of ecological communities,” says Martin. “They built ecological communities through Neal’s first school garden, worm decomposition bins and developed essential skills in collecting data from the garden and the bins along the way.”
Citizen Schools runs programs at Lowe’s Grove and Neal Middle Schools for over 350 students in conjunction with Durham Public Schools. The program includes academic support – 60-90 minutes extra homework and skill-building time each day after school – and unique opportunities for students to work side-by-side with adults in fun, hands-on learning projects designed to reinforce academics as well as impart practical and marketable skills, such as teamwork, oral communication and leadership. The learning project – which Citizen Schools calls “apprenticeships” – are often taught by volunteers from local businesses, civic institutions and communities, alongside Citizen Schools teaching fellows. This semester, thirty-one apprenticeships were taught at Neal Middle School.
When the urban gardening apprenticeship began, a Citizen Schools teaching fellow, Shannon Grossman, asked students to raise their hands if they had ever planted a garden before. “Less than 50% of the class raised their hands,” Grossman remembers, and many were disappointed they were in a gardening apprenticeship, when they could have been in more exciting apprenticeships, like Cisco Robotics or Duke/NCCU Mock Trial.
Grossman and Martin knew it was crucial to get students outside and working on their gardens immediately. Much of the apprenticeship is aligned with the North Carolina science curriculum for sixth grade. Once students invested themselves in the garden, they saw how each part of their garden represented a different aspect of an ecological community. “By the end of the first day of planting, one student proclaimed how she had just touched dirt for the first time in her life,” said Grossman.
“My favorite part of the apprenticeship was building and collecting data from the worm decomposition bins,” says sixth grader Tamerra. “We learned how the worm decomposition bins benefit the ecological community in our garden, and we counted worms later in the semester to see how our bins had grown. We found 6 worm cocoons!“
This week, the students will teach back what they have learned. Each youth apprenticeship culminates in what Citizen Schools calls a “WOW!” – a publicly displayed product, presentation or performance. From 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, December 6, all students participating in the Citizen Schools program at Neal will showcase what they have learned throughout their apprenticeships, through a product, performance, or presentation. The public is invited to applaud their hard work at Neal Middle School.
Early evidence suggests that Citizen Schools programs are getting promising results. A multi-year, independent, matched comparison group study of 1,000 students in Boston Public Schools conducted by Washington, DC-based research firm Policy Studies Associates has found that participants in the program are performing better academically in middle school, enrolling in better high schools, and outperforming their peers in ninth grade math and English grades. Citizen Schools currently serves over 3,000 students at 37 middle schools in seven states across the country. Its largest cluster of campuses remains in Boston, where the program was founded in 1995 and where it operates in partnership with nearly half of the city's public middle schools.
Citizen Schools is a leading national education initiative that uniquely mobilizes thousands of adult volunteers to help improve student achievement by teaching skill-building apprenticeships after-school. Our programs blend these real-world learning projects with rigorous academic and leadership development activities, preparing students in the middle grades for success in high school, college, the workforce, and civic life. Launched in Boston in 1995, Citizen Schools currently serves 3,000 students and engages 2,300 volunteers in 15 cities nationwide. Learn more at www.citizenschools.org.
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Jeff Nash
Office of Public Affairs
P. 919.560.2602
C. 919.412.7947
jeffrey.nash@dpsnc.net
